Hanging around

More writing, broken up with a couple of bimbles round the garden and a longer walk round Swaddywell Pit. 

The rain stayed away, though there were some heavy downpours just to the north, but it was very windy. Migrant hawkers have been hunting over the garden for the last week or so, but today I found two resting on some netting in a very sheltered corner of the garden, possibly the best place to be! And remarkably well-camouflaged!

Swaddywell was fairly quiet, and the common darter and ruddy darter dragonflies were mostly sheltering near ground level, though the breeze clearly wasn't deterring the Emperor from hunting. Gatekeepers  and various white butterflies were on the wing, but the peacock and painted lady I spotted were both in sheltered places out of the wind. 

On the way back to the car I nearly stumbled over a tiny game chick on the edge of the tarmac path. It was part of a large brood, and the parents quickly flew up, trying to distract me from their offspring. I was very surprised to see that they were grey partridge rather than the much more frequent red-legged partridge. They all rapidly disappeared into the long grass, so no photographs taken. A little further up the track the same thing happened with a brood of slightly older pheasant chicks. It seems quite late in the year for so many chicks to be about - normally ground-nesting birds have finished by August.